TheFork - Restaurants bookings review

Erin Myers

2018-09-07

Professional Critic

Erin Myers

TheFork - Restaurants bookings review

2018-09-07

Review Standarts

Our main goal is to provide full and useful app reviews. Our authors strictly follow the rules: minimum 15 hours of the real app usage experience or gameplay, test on main Android and iOS versions, test on phones and tablets.

Restaurants are great if you have got in. But if you’re just on your way, there may be endless troubles. Not working today. Or overcrowded, not a single table to take. Or some special program you didn’t expect. Or the restaurant is no more where it used to be until last year.

To exclude these surprises, you may search for restaurants online and make sure it’s OK before arriving. TheFork is a service for preordering tables and foods in restaurants, so you can reserve your place in advance. And learn the details about the restaurants around, and then select also by location or time required to arrive.

Interface — 5/5

Anyone who has ever dealt with mobile apps will easily make it out. The home screen is, in fact, a search form where you enter your food preferences and your location. It doesn’t have to be your current location; you can be a traveler booking tables in restaurants in different cities and countries beforehand frequently.

The interface is available in different languages, but it selects your system one if possible.
So it will be easier for you to make your order if you don’t speak the local language.

Content and Features — 5/5

Select the cuisine you like, the location, the time you arrive and the number of people in your party, and the app will offer you the widest selection of restaurants around your desired location. You can type in the name or exact location to narrower the search, but there is some magic charm in selecting someplace you’ve never been to before.

Tap on a restaurant on the map or in the list to read the details. These include cuisine type, the average check, chef’s suggestions, interior photos and photos of dishes. You can also read the reviews by the users who have already been here. The rating is also an important part of making your choice, and it motivates restaurants to struggle for each visitor. So the fact that the restaurant participates in TheFork is already a bonus to its public image and a reason to visit it.

Each time you book a table via TheFork, you get a certain number of Yums, its inner currency. When you collect 1000 Yums, you can exchange them for a one-time 20€ discount. You can spend this money at any of the participating restaurants.

The only reason not to like this service is it being not that global. Countries with a lot of tourists, like France, Spain, Belgium, Turkey, are in, and others are left out.

Usability — 5/5

You just select the city, the cuisine, the number of guests and the time you’re planning to arrive at. Then you read the descriptions, look at the photos, estimate the distance on the map and make your choice.

There are little details you better notice, like discounts if you set your booking to an exact time or the language the description is written in. But even if you don’t speak this language, you can sort it out and read the time it opens or closes.

The service doesn’t require paying in advance. All you need to make your booking is your phone number. All the payments are done in the restaurant itself. If it happens not to accept cards of a certain type, it’ll be written on its page.

The only thing we’d wish for is an automatic translation of descriptions and reviews written not in your language. Yes, it will not be that exact, and sometimes it will contain funny mistakes or distort the meaning, but it would be helpful as an option. If it’s affordable for AliExpress, why isn’t it affordable for premium restaurant booking service?

Compatibility — 5/5

The app is available for iOS and Android, covering most devices now in use and manufactured in 2012 or later. It’s compatible with Android 4.4 (or later) and iOS 9.0 or later. In fact, it’s better to have at least iOS 10 and a device supporting it.

Conclusion

It’s a first-rate app for booking tables in restaurants. It’s mostly useful for Western European or Mediterranean countries, but not only; for example, the service works in Brazil.